Losing half of their wealth and honestly rolling the dice on whether a new relationship would be with someone who would be with them through thick and thin or just another “fair weather friend.”

If you are in a relationship with someone where the concern is losing half your wealth after 20 years together then I would advise not marrying that person. I make about double what my wife makes. If tomorrow she said, I want a divorce, then she can take half of what we saved over the 20+ years together without any issue from me (assuming infidelity was not involved, if it was I would go scorched earth). Anything I earned was done with her support. She was there to look after the kids on the nights and weekends I worked late. When I was working until 2am she would often get up to check on me. We earned the money together. When I left software development for 5 years and took a 65% paycut, she was the one that suggested it, indeed she made more than me during that time. When I came back to software she wanted to be sure it was not going to burn me out again.

I very much understand that I sound like a guy that started a business, beat the odss and was wildly successful telling you to open your own business while ignoring the reality that most businesses fail. America stands on the shoulders of those that tried and succeeded though.

I understand that marriages fail and that people get screwed over. I know I have been incredibly lucky with my marriage to my wife. There is really no way to know and I always recommend dating and living together for years before thinking about getting married. We roll the dice when we cross the street. Everything is a risk with no guarantee of a happy ending. For me the gamble was worth it and has paid massive returns far outstripping any financial concerns.

With that said some people get shafted and I really do feel bad for those people. Dedicating your life to someone to discover they are not who you thought must be a devastating experience.

> if it was I would go scorched earth

Out of curiosity, why is that particular situation a red line for you?

Infidelity? For me its the ultimate betrayal. I can understand a drunken one night stand where the person that cheated immediately admitted to doing it. Anything else and you are essentially stealing choice from your partner. They are living a life based on an assumption of loyalty and you are allowing them to do so knowing that its a lie. Its choice theft and betrayal. On top of that, all trust would be dead. I don't want to have to spend my whole life worrying what my wife is doing if she is running an hour late from work or going out with friends. I am naturally a loner so could adapt to being alone and be quite happy relatively quickly. This is not a knock on my wife, she is amazing and I very much prefer her company to that of my own.

If someone does not confess or cheats multiple times or even worse has an affair I believe that is one of the worst things you can do to a person short of the obvious things like murder, violence, etc.

For me personally there can be no forgiveness. I'm not the moral police though, everyone is free to forgive as they want. If someone is cheated on and feels that its not a show stopper then that's their choice, I'm not them. This is very much just a personal thing, for which there can be no forgiveness. Divorce and separate lives is the only option. I would of course still co-parent my kids with them and be civil (similar to how I interact with my kids teachers) but any emotional attachment would die. I would tell the kids why we are divorcing when they are old enough. This may just be a me thing its very easy for me to do the whole "dead to me" thing and just move on.

Great comment. Indeed it's not black and white.

And yes... live together for 3-5 years or so and then get married if you want. I wouldn't rush it.

> When I left software development for 5 years What did you do? Freelancing or left software dev in those years?

Was it easy to get back into it?

I left software completely. I had to get out. Every software job I have ever had results in me working 60+ hours a week, often more. I took a random office job at my wife's very large company. I was able to leverage my tech skills and excel. Got promoted very quickly. The main difference at least fore is when you leave the non tech job for the day or the weekend, it's gone. No need to think about it. Software is different, always some stupid deadline which requires nights and weekends. I eventually went back to software and have been here for many years now. I definitely feel like leaving again but the golden handcuffs and having kids makes it harder.

It was relatively easy to get another job. It was an entry level job making 55k but I only kept it for a couple years. Which is really a shame because it was the best software job I've ever had but it was a small company and I had kids to provide for.

Those damn golden handcuffs ;) … lucky to have that problem, but still… burnout / boreout is no fun.

I’m in a similar position as you, thinking about pivoting to something else for a while, but hesitant to make the jump because of economic uncertainty.

Thanks for the insight.

This isn't really how it works though. She would take AT LEAST half of what you currently have, including stuff you had before you met. You would also have some responsibility for providing for her and your children in the future at a similar standard of living to her current one. You would have pension liability and could lose part of your business if you have one. This could likely be the case even if she was unfaithful. Not meaning to preach, just some things that I found out after the fact, that I never thought about when "young and in love".

And you get to take her stuff. If those are your fears marry for risk aversion. Marry someone who makes more money and has more stuff. You have to support your kids regardless if you are with someone or not. What does unfaithfulness matter in terms when dividing property. The unfaithfulness led to the divorce isn't that enough?

Marrying "a good person" can also mitigate all those concerns you have. If two "good people" co-habitate then neither one will just leave after 20 years. Overall, advice about "good people" isn't really actionable.

The fear of someone being destitute after 20 years of marriage has been somewhat alleviated with divorce laws. Usually, the assets gained in mariage are split 50/50. This could also be set with a pre-nup. On the other hand, if neither party makes a good salary, you can't squeeze blood from a turnip.

"The fear of someone being destitute after 20 years of marriage has been somewhat alleviated with divorce laws" That's exactly my point. If they are not married then if the primary earner just up and left the other would be severely hurt financially.

Marriage isn’t really a solution to any of the problems you state.

Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups.

Many countries also have rules around care for a previous partner by means of common law partnership etc…

Married people often don’t work towards the same goals anymore than unmarried couples.

Marriage can also be a form of entrapment for abused individuals, a means for political gain or forced on people. Even in countries that don’t think those issues are common like the USA where child marriage is more common than people think.

Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality.

Marriage can be a societal contract and/or it can be a vow of love. The former is archaic

"Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality."

I appreciate you letting me know about reality as I have led a sheltered life with no real world experience.

I've been alive and married (20+ years) for longer than I was alive and single. Its been pretty ideal.

How long were you married for before you learned these things and formed your real world marriage experience that I am unaware of? If you were married and it failed then I can understand your negative view of it. I'm sorry it did not work out for you, the end of a marriage / relationship can be hard.

"Divorce is a very real outcome of marriage, as are prenups." lets change that to "Divorce is a very real possible outcome of marriage". prenups are a before marriage thing. So is a long happy life together.

My sister is going through a divorce because they married for reasons other than love and it was clear that it was not a marriage of 2 good people in it for the other.

My brother has also been married for longer than he has been single. Been through some incredibly tough family issues (deaths) that if they were not married would have probably broken them up. Years on they are very happy.

Marriage if done right and again entered into by people that care about each other is an incredible bond and one I feel has contributed strongly to society.

There are negatives to everything but again if its a good match the positives far out weigh it.

Marriage can be a wonderful thing, If its not for you then more power to you, there is no reason to knock the institution that has worked for so many others. Its been around and working for many people for tens of thousands of years. Maybe be open to the fact that there may be some good things that you are missing rather than that through all of human history people have been dumb.

You’re takin this far too personally to have any sort of productive discussion but here it goes against my better judgement.

Saying that marriage is not as important to society has no bearing on what value marriage should mean to you. I also never said that marriage is bad, or not for me. I’m married myself, but like I said, i saw it as a vow of love not a societal contract, unlike your statements that were all matters of societal contract that are neither solved by marriage but are also provided for by common law partnerships.

You inferred something because you took things too personally and saw things in the argument that weren’t there because you clearly took it as a personal attack.

In fact, your marriage is largely irrelevant to the discussion altogether since it’s purely anecdotal and doesn’t expand to the entirety of the human population, let alone the population of a single country like the USA where 1/5 of first time wed couples end in divorce, and who knows what percent of the remaining 4/5 include forced marriage or abuse.

Like I said, I’m married and I don’t think marriage is bad. But I’m also not so arrogant or narcissistic to extend my own life choices and extrapolate them to being integral to society.

I’m also not so narcissistic as to ascribe the success of marriage to the value of the people in the marriage. People change with time. Circumstances change. Marriage shouldn’t be a chain holding people together for eternity to the detriment of each person.

Also to be clear, I’m not saying you’re being a narcissist, though I do think your world view is clearly projected from your life choices based on your response but that’s not enough to judge someone online. Im saying that if I extrapolated my choices to others I’d consider myself a narcissist. Before you reply saying that I’m calling people names.

Marriage as a societal contract is archaic. I didn’t say it was dumb historically (marriage has a long and varied history, where love was often never a factor but made sense for the time), but it is archaic. Those aren’t synonyms.

"Imho you have a very idealized perception of marriage that doesn’t line up with the various shades of grey in reality." Let's ignore you calling me naive. Besides that friend I'm not taking this personally at all no matter how many times you want to insist I am. I'm working on a Saturday and killing some time on HN responding to a post with my opinion and some anecdotal experiences. It's generally called conversation. If you would prefer single sentence responses, so be it. I'm going to go weep into my coffee now since you emotionally devastated me. All the best :)

The point is that your anecdotes are meaningless to the veracity of the point at hand. That’s why they’re anecdotes.

Please stop, there is only so much I can take. ;)

> If you are not married and one partner makes significantly more than the other, what's to stop the wealthy partner just deciding 20 years into the relationship that they want a newer model and just leaving the former partner destitute?

So you like to force your spouse to stay in an otherwise unhappy marriage by putting a ring on their finger and have them sign a paper? So romantic!

Kidding aside, among the many reasons people like to marry, this is one of the worse ones.

> Or marry a good person, raise happy kids and live a good life together.

You might as well be telling someone to just be very lucky.

Or simply don’t marry someone you have just met! (And by “just met” I mean someone you haven’t been in a relationship with for at least 5 years)